access general is an insurance company thathas been coming up more and more in california the last few years. and the reason why isthat they're an insurance company who will sell policies to people who don't even havedriver's licenses, which i don't know how they get away with doing. but as we know, in california, you're requiredto have liability insurance in order to register your car. and so many of these people whodon't have much money will purchase policies from access general. access general is anout of state insurance company. the problem with this is, that when thesepeople, who often don't have driver's licenses and often you can't afford upscale policiesthat are more expensive-- and that's a benefit
too to people, to have affordable insurancecoverage. but the problem is since access general is out of state and they don't reallyhave any local representatives, what happens is, they can't often confirm the facts ofan accident or that an accident has even occurred when you're making a claim against them. so what happens, for example. a client willcome in my office. will be injured in an accident with an access general insured. we will contactaccess general and give them the policy number, the information that was exchanged at thescene. and then the client will go to the doctor to treat his injuries or her injuries. and after a period of time you will try toget a position from access general as to whether
they accept the claim, whether they acceptfault or not. and very often, almost always-- i think there's only been one case in thepast where they will promptly tell you, yes, we've contacted our insured. and we've confirmedthe accident happened. and, yes, it's our fault. the problem is, since they don't have localrepresentatives, they do everything by phone, or by sending a letter to their insured. andif their insured has moved, or if they don't answer the phone calls, or if their phoneservice has been terminated, then they can't confirmed that an accident has even occurredwith one of their insureds. and so they will take the position that, wecan't confirm an accident has occurred, so,
therefore, we can't even entertain a settlementwith your client. and this is very burdensome and onerous to the client, because the onlything you can do at that point is file a lawsuit against their insured and try to serve them. if you serve them, then eventually they'llget back to their insurance company, because they don't want to be personally responsible.and they'll get their insurance company a statement saying, yes, i was at fault. andthat at that point you can settle the case. if we're not able to serve them in the traditionalmanner through personal service, we have to go through the expensive routine of publishinga service, which takes a lot longer. you have to get a lot of documentation for the courtto approve that process. it's more expensive.
but eventually, you will get service by publication.and at that point, once that's completed, you send that to the insurance company andaccess general will usually, at that point, settle the case, because they don't want ajudgment being taken against their insured. but sometimes they will say, well, their insureddid not talk to them, and, therefore, they're being non-cooperative, and they will say wedon't extend coverage anymore, and then you have a problem. you may be able to go through an uninsuredmotorist demand and claim, if your client does have uninsured motorist. if your clientdoesn't have uninsured motorist coverage, you may be out of luck, because access generalhas declined coverage, and now you don't have
uninsured motorist coverage. so i think the most important thing, in manyof these cases, is to have uninsured motorist coverage-- i think in all cases. because youmight have a situation like access general, where they send out one or two letters, orcall a couple times and give up. i don't think that's fair to their insured, and, i think,genuinely not fair to your client. but that's a reality. so my advice is for everyone to get uninsuredmotorist coverage, so we don't have this problem and their injuries will be compensated, eitherby access general or by their own insurance company.
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